The CZECH CHAMBER PHILHARMONIC ORCHESTRA Pardubice is one of the leading Czech orchestras; it is a small symphonic "Mozart-Haydnesque" body. As the only professional orchestra in the Pardubice region it plays a highly important role in the musical life of this region. It organises a series of cycles in Pardubice, it performs in other cities in the region and around the country, it regularly appears at the most important festivals in the Czech Republic and it has also been recognised by audiences in many prestigious concert halls in Europe and beyond.

 

The Orchestra
The Czech Chamber Philharmonic Orchestra Pardubice, founded in 1969, is one of the Czech Republic’s top orchestras. The repertoire of this chamber orchestra includes a large number of compositions from baroque era to contemporary music, including many cross-over and multigenre projects. The first principal conductor, Libor Pešek, quickly raised the orchestra to a high standard and the subsequent principal conductors included Libor Hlaváček, Petr Altrichter, Bohumil Kulínský, Petr Škvor, Róbert Stankovský, Leoš Svárovský and Marko Ivanović have kept a high artificial level of the orchestra. Current leader is Peter Feranec.
The Czech Chamber Philharmonic Orchestra Pardubice is valued for its stylistic interpretation and the extraordinary quality of its orchestral sound, and it is rightly ranked amongst the world's leading representatives of Czech musical culture. It often performs at Czech Republic’s most important festivals (including The Prague Spring International Festival, the Smetana’s Litomyšl or the International Český Krumlov Festival) and at many important venues in Europe in many prestigious concert halls, such as Concertgebouw Amsterdam, Salzburg Festspielhaus, Hercules Hall and Gasteig in Munich and the Musikverein in Vienna, Brucknerhaus in Linz, the Meistersingerhalle in Nuremberg and many others. Outside Europe the orchestra has played in Japan and has toured extensively around America.
The orchestra has collaborated with many leading world-renowned conductors (among others with Jiří Bělohlávek, Marco Armiliato, Marris Jansons and many others) and also a huge number of prominent soloists and choirs (Lazar Berman, Ivan Moravec, Eugen Indjic, Ivo Kahánek, Martin Kasík, Isabelle van Keulen, Vladimir Spivakov, Pavel Šporcl, Václav Hudeček, Gabriela Demeterová, Angel Romero, Jiří Bárta, Ludwig Güttler, Radek Baborák, Peter Damm, Herrmann Baumann, Helen Donath, Eva Urbanová, Dagmar Pecková, Czech Boys Choir Boni Pueri, Prague Philharmonic Choir, Czech Philharmonic Choir Brno) have performed with the orchestra.
In addition to concerts, the orchestra is regularly hired for operatic and theatre projects and has dozens of successful discs to its credit on Naxos, ArcoDiva, Supraphon, Classico, Monitor-EMI, Amabile.
 

Peter Feranec – principal conductor
Peter Feranec was born in 1964 in Bratislava - former Czechoslovakia.  In 1985 after graduating from the Bratislava Academy of Music, he attended the Bartok International Festival and Seminar (1985-1987) with Professor P. Eotvos and conducted contemporary music. In the same year thanks to a scholarship from the Russian Ministry of Culture, he began his studies at the State Conservatory in St. Petersburg (former Leningrad) with M. Jansons as his mentor (graduated in 1990).
After completing his postgraduate studies in Vienna in 1991 by Prof. K. Oesterreicher, Peter was selected as a conductor of the Slovak National Opera House in Bratislava. When he was 25, he was finalist of International Competition in Tokyo (1991) and Budapest (1992) and gold medallist of the 1992 Forum of Young Artists competition in Vienna. Since 1993 Peter conducted several opera productions at the Vienna Chamber Opera as a principal conductor, the Mozart operas “The Marriage of Figaro” and “Don Giovanni” at the Vienna Festival Mozart in Schönbrunn in 1992 and 1993.
Peter made his debut as conductor at the Bolshoi Theatre in Moscow in February 1995, leading an original-language production of “The Marriage of Figaro” (with Professor J. Herz as stage-director). This epoch-making production for the Bolshoi, which is in the midst of revolutionary changes reflecting the new democratic Russia, featured foreign guest artists and attracted widespread attention from the international music community. Peter' s role in this production led to his appointment as Lazarev`s successor, making him the first foreign-born principal conductor (and also the youngest one).
Already the first year in this position brought two very successful tours, in USA (18 concerts with Bolshoi Symphony Orchestra) and in Europe (23 concerts) and a tour in Japan (“E. Onegin”, “B. Godunov”, “Prince Igor”).
At the Bolshoi he led various new productions: “Lucia di Lammermoor”, “La Boheme”, “La Traviata” (Season 1995/1996), “Pique Dame”, “Aida” (1996/1997), “Love for three Oranges” (1997/1998) with Sir Peter Ustinov as stage director and other 18 operatic titles from the Bolshoi’s repertoire.
In 1997 he made another successful tour in USA (25 concerts included Carnegie Hall) and in UAE with Bolshoi Symphony Orchestra and the operatic tour in Austria - Graz with “B. Godunov”, “Pique Dame” and “Eugene Onegin”.
From 1997 to 2000 Peter was Principal guest conductor of St. Petersburg Philharmonic Orchestra; guest conductor of London Philharmonia, Orchestra du Capitol Toulouse, Zürich Opera House, Tonkünstlerorchester Vienna, Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra, Slovak Philharmonic, Czech Philharmonics, Oslo Philharmonic, Moscow Symphony Orchestra, Nürnberger Symphoniker, Janacek Philharmonic Orchestra Ostrava, Lisbon Symphony Orchestra, Gulbenkian Orchestra Lisbon, Tokyo Symphony Orchestra, Orquestra de Sao Paulo, SWDR Orchestra, Guerzenich Orchestra Cologne, Kosice Philharmonic, a large number of chamber orchestras, opera houses in Prague (State Opera, National Theatre), Bolshoi Moscow, Kirov St. Petersburg, Cologne, Berlin (Deutsche Oper, Komische Oper), Zürich, Rostock, Teatro Colon Buenos Aires, Norske Opera Oslo, Opera Toulouse, Teatro filarmonico Verona, Opera House Leipzig and others.
From the season 2001 - 2002 he was appointed as chief conductor at the Slovak National Theatre in Bratislava and principal guest conductor of Czech National Theatre Prague.
In 2003 he debuted at Zurich Opera House, London Philharmonia, Niederösterreich. Tonkünstlerorchester, Teatro Carlo Felice in Genoa.
In the season 2004 - 2005 he debuted at Frankfurt Opera House, Seoul Radio Orchestra, Gewandhaus Orchestra Leipzig, Baden-Baden Opernhaus.
In the 2005 - 2006 season he debuted at Opera House Ljubljana, Ludwigshafen Opera House, Royal Opera Stockholm, tour with National Theatre Prague to Japan.
In the 2006 - 2007 season Peter appeared with Berlin Symphony Orchestra, by conducting new openings at Zürich Opera House (“Don Quixote”), Stockholm (“Traviata”), at Ljubljana Opera House (“Don Quixote”) as well as at the State Opera House Prague (“Idomeneo”), in tours with Slovak Philharmony in Germany, in tour with Zurich Ballet to Athens as well as  many symphonic concerts with Slovak Philharmony Orchestra, Radio Orchestra Prague, BSO Berlin, Orchestra of Ludwigshafen, Opera House Copenhagen.
During the 2007 - 2008 season he conducted new concerts with Munich Philharmony Orchestra, Czech Radio, Slovak Philharmony, Danish Royal Opera House in Copenhagen (“Don Giovanni”), Estonian National Philharmonia Tallinn (Dvorak - Requiem), Moscow Radio Orchestra (Smetana - “My Country”), Thessaloniki Symphony Orchestra, Czech National Opera House in Prague (new production of “Falstaff”), Slovenian National Opera Ljubljana (New production of “Carmen”, “Samson and Dalila”) and he debuted at the Bavarian State Opera House (“E. Onegin”, “A Masked Ball”); he was on tours in Germany with Slovak Philharmony as well as in Japan with Czech National Opera.
In the 2008 - 2009 season new productions of “La Traviata” and “Macbeth” were planned at the Bavarian State Opera in Munich, as well as concerts with Israel Symphony Orchestra, Athens Philharmonics, Slovak Philharmonics, Slovenian National Opera (new production of “Prince Igor”), Zurich Opera House (“Don Quixote”) and Bolshoi Theatre Moscow (“Tosca”, “Turandot”).
From the season 2009 - 2010 Peter was appointed as a new chief conductor and music director of the Mikhailovsky Theatre in St. Petersburg. His first season in this position brought 3 new successful productions of “Rusalka”, “La Juive” and “A Masked Ball”.
In the 2011 - 2012 season Peter prepared “Kata Kabanova”, “Carmen” and “Life with an idiot” at Mikhailovsky Theatre, “Boris Godunov” in Santiago de Chile and he conducted concerts in Odense, Vienna, Vilnius, Prague and Trondheim, Tokyo and Osaka.